Supporters in San Francisco and New York City planned rallies for today.

And in Philadelphia, Pam Africa of MOVE vowed to launch a "massive demonstration" in Center City on April 26.

The worldwide network of supporters of the death-row celebrity yesterday decried the decision by a federal appeals court to reject his bid for a new trial.

"This is no victory in any sense of the word," said Africa, who runs the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal. "In fact, this is a divisive, deceptive plot to fool people into thinking they had done something fair by Mumia."

Abu-Jamal, a former radio journalist, is on death row in Pennsylvania for killing Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in an early-morning shoot-out on Dec. 9, 1981, near 13th and Locust Streets. A federal appeals court yesterday refused to reinstate his death sentence but reaffirmed Abu-Jamal's conviction.

While supporters of Abu-Jamal were outraged, friends and family of Faulkner greeted the decision with a mix of satisfaction and disappointment.

John McNesby, president of Lodge 5 of the Fraternal Order of Police, said he was thrilled that a three-judge panel stood by the first-degree-murder conviction.

"It shows he is what he is - a stone-cold cop killer," McNesby said.

But McNesby questioned the court's decision to throw out the death-penalty conviction. "Disappointed is an understatement," McNesby said.

Michael Smerconish, the columnist and radio talk-show host who is coauthor with Faulkner's widow, Maureen, of Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Loss, Pain and Injustice, said he also was "elated that the federal court has firmly closed the door on any question of guilt or innocence and come down on the side of guilt."

But like McNesby, he said he was "terribly disappointed" by the court's decision not to reinstate the death penalty.

In making that decision, the appeals court affirmed a ruling by U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn Jr. that the jury in Abu-Jamal's 1982 trial might have been confused by the wording of instructions on a jury form. Yohn said jurors might have mistakenly believed they had to agree unanimously on any "mitigating" circumstances.

Smerconish called that "semantic B.S." If ever there were a case that warranted capital punishment, he said, this is it. "And if we're not going to use it in this case, then take it off the books," Smerconish said.